Shanghai Customs

With a population of 1.4 billion, China should be a goldmine for bike builders. But it’s not: motorcycles are banned in many of the biggest cities. In Shanghai you can still get a license plate for a bike, if you have 450,000 Renminbi (Yuan) to hand. Which is about US$67,500. On the other hand, you…

Despite a mind-boggling population of 24 million, Shanghai seems like a questionable location for a custom bike shop. Chinese laws make it expensive to register imported vehicles, and the bigger the capacity, the harder it gets. Still, this hasn’t deterred Kiwi Matthew Waddick and his crew at Shanghai Customs. When they launched three years ago,…